Hotel housekeepers have for years waged a fierce battle to restore automatic daily room cleaning that was scaled back at many properties during the pandemic
Union members from Local 26, representing workers in the hospitality industries of Massachusetts, picket outside the Hyatt Regency Boston, Wednesday, July 17, 2024, in Boston. With up to 17 rooms to clean each shift, Fatima Amahmoud's job at the Moxy hotel in downtown Boston sometimes feels impossible.
Michael D’Angelo, Hyatt’s head of labor relations for the Americas, said the company's hotels have contingency plans to minimize the impact of the strikes.“We are disappointed that UNITE HERE has chosen to strike while Hyatt remains willing to negotiate,” he said. The U.S. hotel industry employs about 1.9 million people, some 196,000 fewer workers than in February 2019, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics. Nearly 90% of building housekeepers are women, according to federal statistics.“Hospitality work overall is undervalued, and it’s not a coincidence that it's disproportionately women and people of color doing the work,” Mills said.
"Now is a fantastic time to be a hotel employee,” Carey said in an emailed statement to The Associated Press.Maria Mata, 61, a housekeeper at the W Hotel in San Francisco, said she earns $2,190 every two weeks if she gets to work full time. But some weeks, she only gets called in one or two days, causing her to max out her credit card to pay for food and other expenses for her household, which includes her granddaughter and elderly mother.
Since the pandemic, UNITE HERE has won back automatic daily room cleans at some hotels in Honolulu and other cities, either through contract negotiations, grievance filings or local government ordinances. “The hotels are saying the guests don’t want it, I can’t find the people and it’s a huge expense,” Sherwyn said. “That’s the battle.”
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